Both sides of fracking debate turn out for Obama in NY

Supporters and opponents of natural gas drilling through hydrofracking got their say Friday along President Barack Obama's bus tour route into the Southern Tier, where the debate over whether New York should expand fracking is hottest.

Fracking is also a heated issue in Monterey and San Benito counties, which have large oil reserves underground. Last year, a federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Land Management violated environmental law by auctioning off the rights to drill or frack on 2,500 acres of prime public lands in Monterey County.

Modern techniques in oil drilling -- known as fracking or hydraulic fracturing -- have suddenly made it feasible to tap into underground oil.

The BLM announced in August that it will conduct a scientific assessment of how oil and gas development would impact California's environment, such as surface and ground water, air quality, greenhouse gases and the impacts of the chemicals pumped into shale to loosen deposits.

On Friday, Obama visited the University at Binghamton. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who will decide whether to allow fracking in New York, did not join Obama on the visit. Although a decision on the dicey political issue has been promised for months, Cuomo says he still awaits a public health study by his administration. Cuomo had met Obama in Buffalo on Thursday, but didn't join him in stops through central New York.

Among the crowd were members of New Yorkers Against Fracking, who aimed to sway Obama's pro-fracking position and influence Cuomo's decision. The organization feels that the process, which involves injecting huge amounts of water and sand along with chemicals deep underground to unlock gas deposits, is a threat to the environment and public health.

"We hope to show the president that he needs to look at the science and ban fracking across the nation," said group member John Armstrong. "Governor Cuomo is no stranger to anti-fracking protests and we hope he sees momentum building against fracking."

Their signs referenced Obama's famous "yes we can" campaign slogan: "Yes, we can ban fracking."

Pro-fracking residents of the long economically distressed Southern Tier and groups of business leaders were holding a rally and urging Cuomo to take Obama's lead. Obama has pushed the hydrofracking of natural gas trapped in deep shale deposits as a way to boost the economy and make the country more independent from energy-producing nations. The relatively recent boom in drilling in other states that share the same shale deposit as New York - Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia - has led to jobs and economic gains.

Unlike fracking on land, which has spurred efforts to prohibit or curtail the practice, fracking in federal waters has not received the same attention.

However this summer California lawmakers asked the federal government to investigate hydraulic fracturing that recently happened off the California coast where new oil leases have been banned since a disastrous oil spill in 1969. Fracking has occurred in the Santa Barbara Channel at least 12 times since the late 1990s, and regulators earlier this year approved a new project.

The extent of fracking in the Pacific causes "extreme concern," state lawmakers led by Assemblyman Das Williams, D-Santa Barbara, said.

The California Coastal Commission said it had no idea until recently that ocean fracking was even happening and planned to ask oil companies in the future whether they intend to frack. Since the work occurs in federal waters, oversight falls to agencies in the Interior Department.